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YouTube Unplugged
Pakistan pulled the plug on YouTube last week. The plan was to keep people in that country from watching anything on YouTube until some unacceptable material was removed. When the government tried to block the site, they accidentally blocked it from people in many other parts of the world.
The problem only lasted a couple of hours, but it got people talking about censorship. When a government stops its citizens from reading a certain book, or visiting a website, that's censorship. In the United States, people have a right to say what they like. Our freedom to do this is protected by our Constitution's Bill of Rights.
In Pakistan, the government controls more of what its citizens are allowed to read and watch on TV, in the press, and on the Internet. In the case of YouTube, someone posted images that were offensive to Islam. The images showed cartoons that were insulting to people who believe that it is wrong to show any images of the Islamic prophet Mohammad.
The Pakistan Telecommunications Authority blocked YouTube because almost everyone in that country is Muslim. In the past, when those cartoons were published in newspapers, some people got so angry there were protests that turned into riots with fires and even deaths. So they thought the censorship was justified. Do you?
I'm Isaac and that's what happened in the Arts this week!
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